


This One's for the Lost Souls

by natcat5



Series: Dark Month 2015 [1]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Gen, Mermaids, Pirate AU, Pirate's of the Carribean: On Stranger Tides AU, Trans Character, Transphobia, Violence, an unfortunate amount of religious babble, dark month 2015
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-01
Updated: 2015-10-01
Packaged: 2018-04-24 08:44:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4912861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/natcat5/pseuds/natcat5
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A pirate, a priest, and a merman walk through a jungle.<br/>The pirate is sick, the merman is injured, and the priest has no prayers to offer for the perverted, the damned, and the heretic.<br/>There is no punchline. </p>
<p>(loosely based off of Pirates 4: On Stranger Tides)</p>
            </blockquote>





	This One's for the Lost Souls

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for some seriously transphobic language. As well as passing mentions of sexual assault on minors. 
> 
>  
> 
> This is loosely based off of Pirates of the Caribbean 4. I only watched the movie once, in theatres, and didn't rewatch it to write this. so I was just working off my memory. Luckily, the only parts of the movie that I cared about involved the hot priest and the mermaid, so I actually didn't do too badly in recalling the events necessary to write this fic.

A pirate, a priest, and a merman walk through a jungle.

The pirate is sick, the merman is injured, and the priest has no prayers to offer for the perverted, the damned, and the heretic.

There is no punchline.

\--

“Roxas, I’m not convinced you lack the ability to turn this thing into a pair of legs,” hisses Axel, struggling under the weight of the long, blue tail draped over one arm, “Admit it, you just like being carried. That’s it, isn’t it?”

In his arms, Roxas looks up at him and makes a face. It’s a vastly inhuman thing, gums curled back to reveal multiple rows of serrated teeth, blue skin on his neck shifting to reveal flaring gills. It’s not meant to be intimidating, but can’t be anything but.

“This is _humiliating_ ,” he hisses back, and with him it really is a hiss; sibilant and animalistic. “I would never willingly submit to this! I’d rather fight a shark, regardless of the condition I’m in.”

His torso is red wherever it isn’t blue or green, sunburnt and blistered from the walk across the island. The scales on his arms are flaking, and patches of grey are spread across his tail. The ocean is what he needs, but he is far from his home waters, with return seeming unlikely at best.

Xion is pressed against Axel’s side, and her eyes are bright with curiousity, peering in to Roxas’s face.

“You mean you can fight a shark usually?” she asks, unable to conceal the excitement in her voice, “Have you? Before?”

Roxas puffs up a little, the thinner translucent fins along his sides flaring and areas of his tail shifting from green to a more yellow colour. He immediately launches into a tale of the time he and his older brother had to defend their nest from an adolescent tiger shark, and Xion smiles, enraptured.

Axel goes quiet, conscious of the other pirates, marching through the jungle with them. Conscious of Blackbeard, at the front of the line. Wanting Roxas for some unknown, hidden purpose. Wanting Axel until he doesn’t anymore. And Xion, always ostracized, always fighting for her right to exist as herself.

Xion asks Roxas if he ever thought of keeping a shark as a pet, and the little noise of surprise he makes, followed by ‘We never even _considered_ that’ makes him sound so much younger than the powerful tail and muscular body would let on. Xion giggles, a schoolgirl laugh.

They’re both just kids.

A merman, a pirate, and a priest.

Axel shivers, sweat trickling down the back of his neck, and walks on.

 

\--

They sink the ship he was on, intercepting his missionary journey to the Americas, and Axel has never felt more relieved in his life.

He feels a passing regret at the deaths of some of the crewmembers that he could stand- the cook, the lookout, and the first mate’s errand boy being among them, but the sentiment is vastly overwhelmed by the relief of being _free._ The cross around his neck has felt like a noose for years, and the mission to the Americas felt overwhelmingly like the long walk to the gallows. Him? Educate the uncivilized masses on the word of Christ? Most days, Axel can’t buy the stuff himself, and it was only his flawless memory and ability to spew out scriptures and sacraments on the spot that kept him from being booted from school entirely.

But the bishop must have suspected something of his true nature, because he had left little room for argument when he had ‘suggested’ that Axel be the apostle sent to liberate the untamed masses of the New World of their heathen ways.

You spend four years free-loading off a seminal school in order to gain a warm bed and regular meals without making much effort to pass into priesthood, and it’s only a matter of time before some higher power alerts his minions on earth and punishes you for it.

Axel can’t tell if the fact that he survived the pirate attack is a furthering of this punishment or a last-ditch offer of redemption. Considering the pirate he’s currently a prisoner of is _Blackbeard,_ he’s leaning towards the former.

The dreaded ‘Beard himself, eyes black as night and coat red as blood. He doesn’t leer, doesn’t mock and laugh. He’s terrifyingly frank, and uses little theatrics in his speech. He has no need to go out of his way to inspire terror; to threaten, to menace. His mere presence, and the hum of the devil’s power that hangs heavy in the air around him, is more than enough.

He ties Axel to the mast using some of that devil’s power, in the middle of a storm, and Axel wonders whether he should be grateful that his cross is wooden, not metal, or if he should be praying for a bolt of lightning to put him out of his misery. There’s no one to perform his last rites, no one to pray for his stupid, worthless soul, and Axel can’t help but imagine St. Peter laughing at the half-assed, insincere life Axel has led, before booting him down to purgatory to rot.

He’s probably a little delirious, maybe a little crazy, and when he sees a tiny boy appear beside him, clinging to the mast for dear life, he reasonably assumes it’s a hallucination.

“I’m going to cut the ropes!” the kid shouts, barely audible over the wind, “But you need to climb down yourself, okay? I can’t carry you!”

The boy’s eyes are very blue, and his cheeks are very round with baby fat. The cabin boy, maybe. It would explain why he’s been sent up the mast. They always are expendable, at least, unless the crew’s been out at sea for awhile and needs something hairless to fuck. But Axel’s pretty sure he saw a woman down on deck with the captain, so maybe this boy’s been spared the weight of that particular sin.

His thoughts are interrupted by his upper half tipping forward and- right, ropes. Cut. Falling. Mast, grab the mast! Shit, hands are really bloody numb-

The boy grabs Axel by his jacket, straining to help him as his fingers scrabble at the wood. He gets a hold of it, blood flowing through his numbed extremities, and begins to shakily shimmy down, wondering if the storm’s made it necessary to shed some extra weight and make him walk the plank, or if he should be worrying about himself more than the boy. Axel knows he’s got a feminine figure; it’s how he paid his way to seminary school in the first place.

They reach the deck, Axel’s legs shaky and the boy’s hand steadying him. It’s still raining, and his vision’s blurry, but he does his best to meet the gaze of Blackbeard as the pirate captain stalks forward, looking appraising.

“A holy man,” he says, “They say it’s bad luck to kill you, but I have no need for idle hands or extra weight on my ship. Tell me, for what reason should I spare your life?”

Axel’s teeth are chattering, his mind is sluggish. He wants to say, ‘Hell if I know’. He wants to say ‘Honestly? There isn’t one’. He wants to say ‘I’m pretty sure the bishop asked himself the same thing’.

But maybe Axel isn’t as ready to die as he though he was. The boys he used to run with called him a dancing flame, wily and hot-tempered. Even in the rain, something stubborn and impudent burns in his chest.

“It is a sin to take another life,” he says, forcing his tongue to work, “Even a soul as blackened as yours has chance for salvation, but only if steps are taken for repentance. A further sin distances you from God’s promise of forgiveness.”

The gathered crew jeers and laughs at that, scornful and derisive. Axel keeps his chin lifted, the way a man assured of his own righteousness would. It’s easy to imagine himself on the other side of this altercation, with his lips curled scornfully at the word of God, but he’s chosen his path, and he might as well ride to the end.

Blackbeard’s sizeable brows lift, and he silences his crew with a half-lifted hand.

“You speak of repentance,” he says, his voice conversational, but arresting, “That is something your order does, is it not? The absolving of sin. A duty to save even the most…blackened of souls.”

He falls silent. Axel feels pinned by his eyes. He’s not stupid. He’s connected the dots, and he knows what the captain wants him to say. What he’s supposed to do to save his own skin.

“I can pray with you, and pray to God to grace you with forgiveness,” he says, “I can assign you penance and lead you through Acts of Contrition. Beyond that, it is in the hands of a higher power.”

This is the part where he says that those only work with intent. That you don’t get forgiven if you’re not actually sorry. But Axel’s trying not to die here, and he doubts that God will hold this particular lie of omission against him. Or, at least, it won’t add much weight to his already hefty pile of sins.

Blackbeard seems satisfied. “You will do those things for me, and I will grant you your life,” he says, “When I call for you, you will come, without fail. Or the deal ends.”

Axel nods. He can’t believe he’s this lucky. Or unlucky. He’s still not sure if this is a furthering of punishment or not.

Blackbeard gestures with his hand to something just behind Axel, and he remembers, with a start, the boy who cut him down. Who’s been standing there the entire time, silent as the grave.

“This is Xion,” says the Captain, “He’ll bunk with you, and will be in charge of making sure you are fed and comfortable during your stay with us. Mind you, I’m not sure how you’ll find his company, being the good Christian that you are. Xion here fancies he’s a girl, and can get quite irritable if you say otherwise. I’m sure he could use some of your priestly guidance, if you care to offer it.”

The boy stiffens, but doesn’t say a word, even as the crew erupts into laughter and mocking calls. Axel’s not sure if Blackbeard’s making a joke, or if he’s alluding to what Axel was considering earlier. Either way, Axel’s pretty sure rooming with the tiny cabin boy is the safest place for him on this ship, and he nods concedingly.

Blackbeard turns to the crew then, barks out orders and tells them to disperse, apparently finished, all matters settled. Xion grabs Axel by the arm and wordlessly begins steering him across the deck, directing him down and through the bottom of the ship.

Their shared room is even tinier than the room Axel had to himself in the seminary, and that’s saying something. There’s a pile of children’s books on the floor by the single bunk, and a collection of seashells on the little stool with the lantern on it.

The light’s dim, but it’s better than it was out on the deck, with only the lightning and Blackbeard’s glowing personality to brighten the night. In here, Axel can see Xion a little better. Still tiny, still round-faced and blue-eyed, but with black hair plastered to their forehead, and with a dress fashioned out of ragged black cloth as their choice of clothing, overtop of long black stockings.

Axel is no stranger to crossdressers and perverts. He spent most of his life falling into the latter category himself, and had lain with his fair share of men-playing-at-ladies and ladies-playing-at-men. He’s never met one so young, though. And never met one brave enough to assert their identity while amongst a crew of violent sailors. Xion clearly has the mettle of a man, even if she would rather not be one.

He decides he’ll go with it. It’s obvious Blackbeard hoped bunking with Xion would cause Axel some kind of religious distress, and he sees no reason to give the man that satisfaction. He’s also impressed by her bravery, and owes her for getting him down from the pole. It costs him nothing to refer to her as a girl at any rate, and despite assertions to the contrary, neither the Ten Commandments nor Jesus Christ himself had anything to say on sex swapping.

“You’ll take the bed,” Xion says, shoulders squared as she faces him, “I’m used to sleeping on floors. I’m sure a man such of yourself is not.” She’s clearly expecting the worst, her entire body is braced against it, but she’s staring him straight on. Waiting for invasive questions. Waiting for him to assert that she’s going to hell unless she renounces her degenerate ways.

“You’d be surprised at what I’m used to,” Axel replies, “The floor is fine for me. God expects me to endure greater trials than this. And it would be dishonorable of me to rob a lady of her bed.”

Xion’s eyes widen, before narrowing in suspicion, her cheeks flushing.

“Don’t mock me,” she hisses, hands balling into fists, “God’s word means nothing on a pirate ship. Whatever you and your lot might think of me-,”

“God’s word is everywhere kid, it’s kinda his thing,” Axel interrupts. He’s aware his gutter rat drawl is slipping through, but he’s tired and wet and really wants to pass out. “But ‘my lot’ don’t think much of me either. Piracy has nothing on the life I lived before dedicating it to Christ. There are devils on sea and land alike. Surprisingly few of them live in crossdressers, so I see no harm nor foul in referring to you in the terms you want.”

Xion’s mouth hangs open with shock, but then her countenance softens a little. The hard pirate exterior cracks, and Axel feels his own guard relaxing.

They talk. Not about themselves, really. Xion asks him questions and Axel answers them. She’s seen little of the world and her books are juvenile. Axel may not have travelled much, but the seminary’s library was vast, and he knows enough to answer her questions and tell her stories that make her laugh.

Xion is surprisingly sweet, for a pirate wench. She clearly knows how to put on a tough exterior, but at her core, she’s young and kind. Axel doesn’t ask how old she is, knowing she’d just lie, but he guesses it’s probably not over five and ten. Old enough to wed and bed, but still a child by all accounts. She’s still got the light of hope in her eyes. It’s a little a painful to see.

“Our destination,” he says, the lantern light burning low, “Where is it, exactly?”

Xion’s mouth twists into an uneasy half smile, and she folds her hands together, as Axel’s noticed she does when she’s nervous.

Xion tells him, hushed, that they’re sailing to an island that is rumoured to have some form of great power, and that they’ve been on a hunt for things that some crewmembers say are ingredients in a spell.

“So we’re dealing in witchcraft now, are we?” Axel asks dryly, and Xion smiles a little, shrugging her shoulders. She’s not a godfearing child, she couldn’t be, as she is. All her love of fairytales, of her children’s stories, translates into how she lives her life. She loves adventure, she loves wondrous things, and the potential heresy of their endeavors means nothing to her, because it’s like the events of a fairytale are unfolding around her.

“Dunno,” she answers, eyes shining with quiet excitement “But apparently our next stop is to catch a mermaid.”

\--

Non-humans don’t have souls, according to the Church. The creatures that lurk in the unexplored corners of the world are those that were neglected by Noah, barred from the Ark. They are those that should have perished, and they exist as abominations to God’s designs.

Blackbeard aims to catch one of these creatures, travels to one of the forgotten, unholy places in which they dwell, and his men are massacred, as a result.

The creatures of hell tend to be described as grotesque, redskinned, horned. Burnt and blistered denizens of the damned. The mermaids are beautiful, as they cut through the water, as they fling themselves through the air to tackle men of the deck, as they pull sailors down with their teeth, they are beautiful. Paradoxically gorgeous hellbeasts.

But Axel has always found beauty in dangerous things. Fire, knife-juggling, Larxene.

He contemplates death at the hands of one of them, as the ship is rocked viciously, driven against rocks, and he’s knocked into the water. He wonders what it would be like, to be torn apart alive. To be eaten by devils modeling themselves after Eve, but carrying the spirits of Beelzebub and Asmodeus.

He manages to pull himself up onto a rock, out of the water, but he doesn’t imagine it’ll help much, considering the things could fling themselves up high enough to pull the men off the deck of the ship. Nearness to death is not something Axel is unfamiliar with, and he finds a sort of calm stealing over him, an acceptance.

That is, until he sees Xion fling herself over the edge of the ship after him.

“ _No!_ You stupid- Xion, stay on the ship!” he shouts, even as she pulls herself through the water, heavy jacket trailing behind her. Her teeth are chattering with fear and cold as she pulls herself up beside him and thrusts her dagger into his hand, pressing against his side.

On the ship, she had told him to stay close to her if the creatures attacked. That she would wield her baton, and he was to steal the dagger out of her belt and use it to defend himself. He had wondered if Blackbeard had authorized that decision, or if Xion had been putting herself on the line to protect him.

“I-I’m in charge of you, remember!” she says, breathing heavily, eyes blown wide, “I’ll get lashes. It’ll get me lashes if you die.”

She’s pressed so tightly against him that Axel can feel her heartbeat, and he realizes with a sinking feeling that she’s grown attached to him.

Damn it all.

Something splashes in the water beside them, and both Axel and Xion jump. He tries to shove her behind him, but she stubbornly refuses to let him, remaining firm by his side.

Nothing rears out of the water to grab them, to tear them into pieces, and Axel’s eyes scan the murky water for the source of the sound.

It’s further along the rocky cove, where a rowboat has broken against the rocks and upturned. From beneath it, Axel sees a tail thrashing about, pinned beneath the boat and against the rocks. Xion follows his line of sight and sucks in a breath.

In the distance they can hear the sounds of the crew being massacred. The angry, inhuman screeching of the mermaids, who have proven to be unprecedented in their viciousness. The creatures that were denied entry to the Ark, and festered in the floodwaters that were meant to cleanse the wretchedness from the earth. Maybe the bible was right about that, if nothing else. Axel’s been close to genuine evil in humans before, but it seems to pale in the face of what he’s hearing this bloody night.

“They won’t catch one,” Xion says, quietly, “They’re too-. They’re monsters. This one- it’s already trapped. We need- we need to tell them.”

She’s still shaking, and her hand tightens around his wrist. “Axel, we need to tell them we have one already trapped.”

\--

Mythical creatures. Degenerate beings abandoned by gods. The icky things in the bad book that weren’t actually supposed to exist. In a span of just over 24 hours, Axel has seen mermaids, been attacked by mermaids, and ‘caught’ a mermaid.

And now he’s watching one die.

The merman is carried forth in the class container, mounted on wooden plats for some unlucky saps to carry through the jungle. In the sunlight, on the beach, Axel can see him clearly. It’s disorienting and disturbing, the blonde hair, blue eyes, human face, set above a lithe form of twisting blue and green scales, ending in a _fish tail._

The water sloshes as he’s carried, and Axel sees a hand press against the glass. There’s webbing, translucent skin, between each finger. Smatters of scales starting just below the palm. The hand slides against the walls of its prison, before dropping away to float limply in the water.

He’s dying.

The container they have him in is airtight, most likely to prevent him from smashing out of it and taking someone’s head off. But apparently the merman is more man then mer, and is suffocating without air. Every so often, his suspended body will turn in such a way that Axel gets a direct view of his face- boyish, terrifyingly boyish. Mouth open and gasping. Dulled over blue eyes that seem to meet Axel’s every single time he glances over.

Axel grits his teeth.

All of God’s creations are sacred and deserve life. But this- he- it-, is allegedly one of the creations that God tried to hurriedly shove under the bed where no one could see it by way of cleansing flood. So. He’s a little fuzzy on where it stands on the ‘sanctity of life’ meter.

But watching him slowly die is torturous. Axel goes through the justifications both for, and against, and ultimately decides that God’s will would probably be…

Irrelevant.

He lurches forward, grabbing a fallen tree branch and wedging it under the lid. Xion’s startled into a shout beside him, and the men carrying the creature all start cursing, one of them lashing out at Axel.

“The thing’s _dying_ you idiots,” he hisses, ignoring how unpriestly he sounds, “It needs air _and_ water!”

He pushes down on the branch, and the lid pops up. The reaction is instantaneous. The merman gasps, hands scrabbling against the glass as it pushes its face as close to the top of the water as it can get.

Blackbeard shoves his way down from the front of the party, and Xion hurries to explain Axel’s actions. None of the gathered crew can deny the change in the merman’s demeanour. No longer floating limply, belly up, but staring out at them, eyes sharp and fins flaring in the confined space of the tank.

The Captain doesn’t cut off his head. Xion’s trembling beside him. The march carries on.

Axel half-expected Blackbeard to call him to the front of column, or somewhere suitably close to him so that he’s watched and doesn’t get into anymore shenanigans, but he’s left where he was, unnervingly close to the merman’s tank.

It’s staring at him.

Eyes scarily blue, a slightly lighter shade than the scales covering its body. They stare at him, narrowed in what could be suspicion, anger, some meaning completely inhuman, native to the creatures of the sea.

Axel does his best to avoid its gaze. Xion, however, stares back at it for him. Unapologetically captivated. The two of them lock gazes every once in awhile, the merman with an unreadable expression, Xion with clear wonder in her eyes. Axel tries to ignore them both.

The sun climbs higher in the sky, and the party staggers on through the jungle. The more overweight crewmembers drop back, others remove their shirts to act as sunshades and sweatbands. Xion removes her large overcoat, tucking it under one arm. Axel’s seminary jacket is already in tatters, removing much more would leave him with less decency then befits the station he’s trying to fill. He ends up holding Xion’s large jacket overtop of both of them, trying to give them some much needed relief from the heat.

The men carrying the merman tank aren’t so lucky. The heat overwhelms one of them, and he collapses forward, dropping his corner of the tank and knocking into the carrier in front of him. They both go down, and the tank crashes to the jungle floor.

It shatters.

Lukewarm water spills over Axel’s boots, and Xion yelps, jumping to avoid the shower of glass. Several of the men scream and scramble back, vivid memories of the dangers of a free mer-creature rearing forward in their minds. Bright as blood and loud as a death-rattle.

But collapsed on the jungle floor, weakened and alone, with none of its kin about, the merman looks painfully young, and nearly harmless. His skin looks translucent, sickly pale, in bright contrast to the colourful scales that adorn his body.

A silence falls across the crew as he pushes himself upwards, lines of red along his arms and torso where its been cut by broken glass. His hair is now plastered against his face, making the childish roundness more prominent. There is nothing scary, nothing fearful about the overwhelmed, panicked look on the creature’s face as he stares up into the crowd of murderous pirates that surrounds him. His tail curls uselessly against the jungle floor, glittering with shards of glass.

The silence stretches. No one seems to know how to proceed.

It’s Xion who darts forward, taking her overcoat with her, and throwing it over the merman, who flinches away.

“He’ll dry out if you just leave him in the sun like that,” she snaps, “Were you all just going to stand there and stare?”

The merman clutches the coat about him, turning his flat, intense on Xion, who stares back stubbornly. And Axel notices, some of the red marks and welts that he had thought were cuts from the glass, are in fact blooming on the creature’s skin at an alarming rate. An immediate, violent reaction to the direct sunlight. Xion was sharp to have caught it.

Blackbeard pushes his way through the crowd, and Axel thinks he sees his eyes narrow, staring at the collapsed merman. It’s a scary thought, that there’s emotion behind that bushel of beard and evil.

“We’ll have to march quicker now,” he snaps, “It can’t die before we reach our destination. One of you louses, pick it up.”

There’s a general murmur of unease among the gathered men, but fear of Blackbeard is evidently stronger than fear of the creature curled up helplessly on the ground, and a few of them begin to move forward.

The reaction is instantaneous. The illusion of a helpless young boy is shattered as the merman snarls, revealing rows of jagged, gnashing teeth. It drops the overcoat in favour of lifting up its arms, brandishing the nails, sharpened into claws, at the end of each webbed hand. Those who had begun to move forward jump back, some of them screaming, and the entire gathered crowd shuffles backward. Even though it’s alone, the memory of the previous night is too recent.

Blackbeard’s expression tightens further. In a single, fluid moment, he stalks forward, draws his sword, and smashes the hilt into the merman’s face.

It goes down with a strangled sound, blood bubbling up from its mouth and nose, a few teeth coming loose. It screams again, as Blackbeard steps purposefully on the area between its tail and the tail fin, and abruptly quiets to a low keen as the pirate captain lowers the blade to its throat.

“You’re in no position to be acting difficult,” the Captain says flatly, “I need you alive, but I don’t need you pretty. I don’t mind taking some time to carve something intricate into this nice tail of yours. Work my way upwards to your face. How does that sound?”

The merman doesn’t respond, but its throat bobs noticeably. All of its flaring fins droop down, and it doesn’t make any move to attack, eyes fixed on the blade at its throat, and blood still dripping from its lips and nose.

“Glad we understand each other. Always nice to meet someone with a bit of sense,” says Blackbeard conversationally, stepping off the creature’s tail. He swings the sword away from its throat, leveling it at Axel, who blanches.

“You, priest,” snaps the Captain, “You’re in charge of carrying this creature to our destination. You and the boy are the ones who found it, after all. If it gets uppity, have one of the men lop off a few of its fingers. Perhaps an ear. Whatever’s not too distasteful for a holy man such as yourself.”

Everyone turns to stare at him. Including the merman, lips twitching, eyes enraged. Xion looks nervous, but moves closer to him, in support maybe. Axel has to bite his tongue from saying something distinctly un-priestly to Blackbeard, and merely nods, face tight.

Well, fuck.

Picking up the thing is a terrifying endeavor, even knowing that Blackbeard’s threats have scared it into compliance. Xion hovers near him nervously, holding her club, and Axel wonders if she’d actually try and smash the thing’s face in if it went for his throat. Hopefully, they won’t have to find out.

There are patches of red blooming on the merman’s shoulders, and Axel awkwardly picks up Xion’s overcoat and tosses it over the creature, before biting the bullet and scooping it up.

It makes a sound, a mix between a growl and a hiss, and Xion darts forward. But it doesn’t make any move to attack, settling into Axel’s arms with a look of simmering fury.

Blackbeard looks satisfied. The Captain turns to return to the front of the line.

The march carries on.

\--

“You are goddamned heavy, you know that?” mutters Axel, out of breath. “I can’t believe this. This is clearly a two-man job. That Blackbeard’s something else.”

The merman makes a low noise in the back of his throat; it could almost be construed as a snort.

He’s still wrapped up sullenly in Xion’s overcoat, body damp and cold against Axel’s chest. His tail’s hanging over Axel’s arm, and that’s the heaviest bit. The part that’s making his muscles ache.

“It would be harder,” the merman says, his voice higher-pitched then expected, but warbly,  “If I were to bite your fingers off. Perhaps best to not complain.”

“You can’t reach my fingers from there,” counters Axel, unphased, “And if you did, then Xion would just return the favour and relieve you of your own. Isn’t that right, Xi?”

Xion gives them both a bemused look, and shakes her head ruefully.

They’ve fallen to the back of the column, the merman’s weight slowing Axel down considerably. Despite being out of breath, Axel had begun muttering angrily to himself as soon as they’d put some space between the majority of the group, and both he and Xion had been surprised when the merman had responded to his mutterings. He didn’t generally have anything nice to say, but they’d settled into a weird kind of banter. One that would probably weird Axel out considerably if he stopped to think about it.

“I lost my dagger in the cove,” she says regretfully, “I could try with my nails, but they’re not as well-maintained as his are.”

“It’s true, everything about all of you is useless,” the merman agrees amicably. “Flat nails and flat teeth. Lose those fancy bits of steel, and then what are you?”

“Capable of walking on our own, to start,” replies Axel smugly, “Not getting burnt like a lobster from a bit of sun.”

The merman bares his teeth, but it’s more sullen then threatening.

“The stories all say that mermaids like sunning themselves on rocks, that you can see them sitting sometimes,” says Xion, sounding a little wistful, and very curious, “But I guess that doesn’t really happen then, if you’re so sensitive to sunlight.”

“They used to, in the old days,” answers the merman flatly, “And then the bullets came. So we went deeper down, further away. And still, you managed to find us.”

Xion looks saddened. Axel snorts.

“Can’t quite buy that woe is me act, I’m afraid,” he says shortly, “You could have avoided the ship if you wanted. Stayed deep. But you chose to attack. That’s not on us.”

“You came to that cove for a purpose,” growls the merman, scales rippling, “Would you have left without it? Attacking first is better than waiting for you to start shooting into the water. Drop down those long, dragging nets. Poison the fish. Always new, creative ways.”

His expression is twisted, grief and anger and frustration all in one. Axel refuses to let himself be moved by it, or by the creature’s words. This boy-looking thing is a murderer, and a damned existence besides.

Not that Axel himself is much better. But, well, he’s trying.

Xion looks genuinely distressed, staring at the merman with pity in her eyes.

“Humans are like that, ruthless in their persecution,” she says, and Axel shoots her a look, narrow-eyed. But she continues on, “They don’t understand, or are afraid, or don’t _want_ to understand, and they kill, or capture, or hurt. Because they can. Because they want to. Because they think, for some reason, that they have no choice.”

She sucks in a breath, eyes looking suspiciously damp.

“It’s best to deal with people as individuals, rather than generalize and make assumptions,” she continues, “And I think that extends beyond species. I’m not going to judge you as a mermaid-man. Merman. I’d rather we deal with each other person to person. Let’s leave humans and merpeople out of it. Let’s just be Xion, and Axel, and you.”

Axel wants to tell Xion that she’s taking this too seriously. That they’re not really talking with this- this merman. Just filling the silence with meaningless babble as they walk to who the hell knew where. That whatever Blackbeard wanted the merman alive for, it couldn’t be good, and that she shouldn’t get attached. Just like she shouldn’t have gotten attached to Axel. And besides, the merman is literally their unwilling prisoner. It’s not like he’s going to reciprocate.

The merman, however, is staring at Xion with a face that’s inexplicably raw. His eyes are wider than Axel’s ever seen them, not narrowed in suspicion or anger. And the near pout on his lips makes him look unbearably young.

“Roxas,” he says, the hard sounds catching in the back of his throat and hissing through his teeth in a strange, primordial accent, “That is my name.”

Xion’s face blooms with delight. Axel just looks back and forth between the two of them, exasperated and tired.

How do these things always happen to him?

\--

Axel fades out of the conversation a little bit, after that. Xion and Roxas get along _well._ Ridiculously well. They chatter on in a way that makes Axel feel painfully old. They talk about inane things too; the colour of the leaves in comparison to the colour of seaweed. The way colours look different under the water. The fauna of the jungle versus the fauna of the ocean. Whether Roxas has ever seen a bird. Whether Xion has ever seen coral.

They both collect seashells. It’s adorable. Axel feels like he needs to be institutionalized for finding it adorable.

Every so often Xion will ask him a question, to clarify some element of human society, and he’ll answer. Then Roxas will ask him a question, and he’ll answer, and try not to be too sarcastic. Roxas seems to like the bit of snark though, grinning whenever they trade verbal spars.

Axel is walking through the jungle in the company of pirates. With a merman in his arms and a sexual deviant at his side.

If this was supposed to be his second chance at redeeming himself, given by God, he’s honestly not sure how he’s doing.

\--

They arrive at their destination, and the other shoe finally drops.

Obviously, _obviously,_ the little circle of camaraderie that he, Xion, and Roxas the merman formed wasn’t going to last. They were still all here because of Blackbeard. They were still all prisoners, in their own way. And Roxas was still needed for some unknown, potentially heretical purpose.

They reach a shallow pool, unshaded by trees, in the direct glare of the sun, and they discover what that purpose is.

“Mermaid tears,” says Blackbeard, his tone conversational as his men seize Roxas and tie him to the rocks, where another merperson’s skeleton is clearly visible. “So hard to get. If you weren’t such hardy creatures, we wouldn’t need to turn to such unsavory methods, hm?”

Roxas’s skin is already turning red and blistering, skin flaking wherever the sunlight touches. His face is tight with pain, tail thrashing uselessly. He’s not screaming. He certainly isn’t crying. He’s not making a sound.

Xion, on the other hand.

“This is terrible, you can’t!” she cries, struggling against the hold of the crewmembers restraining her, “Axel, this is wrong! This is so wrong! You can’t let them!”

Roxas’s eyes are purposefully turned away from him.

Axel is. Axel is many things. Many people. Axel is a liar. Axel is a thief. Axel is a pervert who has slept with men and women and those in between. He has used and been used. He has sinned more than he has bothered to confess. He used seminary school as a haven, took in some of its teachings, but could never fully commit himself. Never actually became a priest. Axel cannot comment on whether or not mermen have souls. Whether they deserve to burn to death on a pile of rocks. Whether the word of a crossdresser, of a degenerate, means anything. Axel the holy man can’t comment on those things. And every other Axel that has ever existed has always been very clear about only looking out for one person – Axel.

Xion screams his name again.

“Willful destruction of life,” he says lowly, hearing himself as if from far away, “Is not of God’s teachings.”

Blackbeard raises an eyebrow. He seems amused. Axel’s heart is thundering in his chest.

“Is that so?” comments the pirate Captain, “That’s too bad. Though I’ll admit Priest, with our destination near at hand, I’m not feeling nearly as Godfearing as usual.”

Axel’s tired from carrying Roxas, or addled from the heat, or just frozen with fear. Either way, he’s not fast enough to avoid the sword that goes singing towards his side.

Xion screams, then falls silent abruptly with a choked sound.  

Axel collapses onto his hands and knees, feeling the wet heat spread across his side, a throbbing pain radiating outwards.

He lifts his head, sees Xion crumpled on the ground. He lifts his head, sees Roxas staring at them. The merman’s face is red, his expression is devastated.

He’s crying.

\--

A pirate, a priest, and a merman lie dying in a sunny clearing on a deserted, jungle island.

The pirate is unconscious, never to wake again. The merman is unrecognizable, used for the purpose he was brought for, and left discarded in the sun.

The heretical priest, a sinner and a skeptic, offers them all Last Rites, as blood pulses out of the wound on his side. Prays to a God he’s always had a so-so relationship with, at best. Prays for souls who society has said time and time again are damned.

He closes his eyes.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally to have a more hopeful ending, but I'm planning to write a fic a day for the entire month, and I really wanted these things to be short oneshots. Not 6500 word monstrosities. It's ridiculous. I'm ridiculous. I had to chop it and just end it there. Sorry.


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